Is it competetion? Is it the crazy search engine algorithms?

Its neither of these things! The 2 biggest reasons are:

1) You have a lack of knowledge - I am sorry to be blunt
2) You are not using the right tools

This should actually build you feel better for a moment - because now you can logically do something about it rather than "spinning your wheels"

Lets assume you are at point a and you want to get to point b.

Getting there requires a map. The map is basically a traffic plan.

So the first step is to have a definite visitors plan and then DO the plan.

The second step is use additional tools to turbocharge your plan.

These two techniques combined will attract visitors to website - real visitors , targetted visitors and ongoing traffic.

To generate a real traffic pulling page requires persistence and technology. Combine the two and you WILL attract traffic to your website .

I have 2 web sites in a very competetive niche. I constantly need to work on them to generate visitors . But because I understand I am using traffic methods that work, I understand I will eventually have workable visitors to my sites. My visitors stats are constantly climbing.
Ill let you know a secret - I didnt even have my sites listed in the search engines and I was grasping traffic to them. You might do this too.

FFA advertising sites are pretty much useless these days for serious visitors generation. The search engines are taking much smarter and will ban your web site if you make use of black techniques, so you really positive need to do some research and learn what works without breaking the rules.

So to summarize, grasping traffic involves data and tools. By reading my traffic package info which is free you will start to get the information and by getting advantage of the powerful tool I show you will form a killer combination.